The source of this modified version can be obtained via git:
git clone git://cworth.org/git/hgbook-git
+
or
- git clone http://cworth.org/git/hgbook-git
-and can be browsed online:
+ git clone http://cworth.org/git/hgbook-git
- http://git.cworth.org/git/hgbook-git
+and can be [browsed online](http://git.cworth.org/git/hgbook-git)
### 2.1 Installing git on your system
* Ubuntu
- apt-get install git
+ apt-get install git-core
#### 2.1.2 Mac OS X
development environment necessary to work on improving the msysgit
port of git, and WinGit, a package for installing just git itself
without the development environment, (still in Alpha as of September
-2008).
+2007).
### 2.2 Getting started
special. You can rename or delete a repository any time you like,
using either the command line or your file browser.
-#### 2.3.1 Making a local copy of a repository
+#### 2.3.1 Creating a local copy of a remote repository
+
+As suggested, a repository can be copied through normal file-copying
+commands. But git also provides a "git clone" tool for copying a
+repository. This provides a means of copying a repository over the
+network, and is also useful with a local repository since it is much
+more efficient than creating a normal copy, (creating a local clones
+is blazingly fast).
-Copying a repository is just a little bit special. While you could use
-a normal file copying command to make a copy of a repository, it’s
-best to use a built-in command that git provides. This command
-is called “git clone”, because it creates an identical copy of an
-existing repository.
+We've assembled a simple repository that will be used in the examples
+throughout this chapter. Go ahead and clone this repository now so
+that you will be able to follow along:
$ git clone git://cworth.org/git/hello
Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/hello/.git/
Another useful syntax is .. which can be used to specify a range of
commits. So "origin..master" specifies everything that has been
-committed to master since it derived from origin.
+committed to master since it diverged from origin.
#### 2.4.3 Viewing specific revisions
$ git commit -a
-Note: The -a on the command-line instructs git to commit all changes
-to tracked files. Without this, "git commit" will only commit changes
-that have been previously staged for committing with "git add
-file". The most common usage is to commit with "git commit -a" and
-only use "git add file; git commit" when there is a need to commit
-only some subset of changes that have been made.
+Note: The -a on the command-line instructs git to commit the new
+content of *all* tracked files that have been modified. This is a
+convenience over explicitly listing filenames to be committed on the
+"git commit" command line. It is useful to use "git commit <files>"
+when there is a need to commit only some subset of the files that have
+been modified.
+
+If new files need to be committed for the first time, just use "git
+add <file>" before "git commit -a". If a file needs to be removed,
+just remove it as normal before committing and "git commit -a" will
+notice that---it does not need to be explicitly told about the
+removal.
The editor that the “git commit” command drops us into will contain an
empty line, followed by a number of lines starting with “#”.
not presented in the most natural "git way", (and I'm a little too
tired to fix it tonight).]
-#### 2.8.2 Checking out previous revisions
+Note: Mercurial users who are reading this might wonder if there's a
+need for the equivalent of "hg update" after doing a "git pull". And
+the answer is no. Unlike mercurial, "git pull" and "git merge" will
+automatically update the workind-directory files as necessary.
-If any users of mercurial are reading this, they might wonder if
-there's a need for the equivalent of "hg update" after doing a "git
-pull". And the answer is no. Unlike mercurial, "git pull" and "git
-merge" will automatically update the workind-directory files as
-necessary.
+#### 2.8.2 Checking out previous revisions
-But there's another function provided by "hg update" which is to
-update the working-directory files to a particular revision. In git,
-this functionality is provided by the "git checkout" command. To
-checkout a particular branch, tag, or an arbitrary revions, simply
-give the appropriate name to the "git checkout" command. For example,
-to examine the files as they existed before the original typo
-introduction, we could do:
+It's often useful to examine the working-tree state of some specific
+revision other than the tip of some branch. For example, maybe you
+would like to build a particular tagged version, or maybe you'd like
+to test the behavior of the code before a particular change was
+introduced. To do this, use "git checkout" and pass it the name of any
+revision, (with a branch name, a tag name, or any other commit
+identifier). For example, to examine our project before the original
+typo was introduced:
$ git checkout 0a633bf5
Note: moving to "0a633bf5" which isn't a local branch
for new commits, we would first have to create a new branch name as it
describes.
+If we were to use "git checkout" with a branch name, then that would
+change the current branch, (meaning that any new commits would advance
+that branch pointer).
+
For now, let's return back to the tip of the master branch by just
checking it out again:
projects / hgbook-git / blobdiff